Hot Topics:

Lyons businesses take a hit from insurance rules

Though not flooded, policies consider losses flood-related

By Scott RochatLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
09/27/2013 08:04:13 PM MDT

Updated:
09/27/2013 08:08:48 PM MDT

Smokin' Daves BBQ and Taphouse manager Luis Montes opens blinds to let light into the building while checking for damage Sept. 18 in Lyons. Though owner Cat Oehlman has insurance against loss of business, she does not have flood insurance, so her losses due to being shut down are not covered.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

LYONS -- In a way, Cat Oehlman is lucky. The St. Vrain floodwaters never actually came inside her Lyons restaurant. True, she has no power, no clean water, no sewer, no town to work in, but the flood itself never directly damaged her building.

Now ask her if that matters to her insurance carrier.

"Our buildings have been paralyzed," said Oehlman, the owner of Smokin' Dave's BBQ and Taphouse. "But the insurance companies say they can't pay a loss of business claim, because the circumstances are because of the flood."

Naturally, as a business outside the flood plain, Oehlman doesn't have flood insurance. And with full utility service still months away -- sewer and water are the longest holdouts, and the most critical to a restaurant owner -- she and many other small business owners in the town are pretty much stuck.

"We are hemorrhaging money like crazy in Lyons," she said. "We can't sit around for six months waiting to come back."

It's a worry that's lingered for a couple of weeks now. Like a lot of small towns, Lyons mostly has small businesses. It's a sign of local pride, but it's also a sector that doesn't have a lot of cushion when something on this scale happens.

Especially when anything flood-related can get denied by a policy.

"I don't know where help comes from, but there's got to be something," said Debbie Anderson, owner of Lyons Fork. Her restaurant got both barrels: despite being out of the 100-year flood plan, she managed to get mud from the flood and a denial from her carrier.

Advertisement

"This was going to be the year we got over the hump and wound up making some money," Anderson said with a bitter laugh.

So what options are there? For businesses, the main channel is the Small Business Administration, which offers disaster recovery loans, usually at about 4 percent interest. But more than one Lyons owner said the last thing they need to do right now is borrow more money.

"For us, taking on more debt will be a last resort, to try and avoid making it harder to recover once business does get moving again," said Connie Sullivan of the St. Vrain Market, which lost 80 percent of its inventory to the flood.

There have been some helping hands. Sullivan noted that Chase Bank, UNFI and Shamrock Foods have been working with her to defer payments on outstanding bills or loans, so the market can use its immediate cash on repairs. The market's distributors have been looking for suppliers willing to provide inventory donations, she said, and the market is looking at ways to bake and make sandwiches off-site until the water and sewer are back.

"Our priority right now is just to get back to some kind of operations so that we can put a few of our employees to work and show our customers and business partners that we are committed to coming back," Sullivan said.

Some Lyons business owners will be meeting next week to discuss options with each other and the local chamber of commerce.

On Thursday, Lyons trustees approved a $270,000 contract to get the town's sewer plant back online by Dec. 31. Repairing or replacing the pipes that send the waste to the plant is expected to take longer. Electric and gas service is planned to be rolled out as soon as possible -- a rough schedule is expected to be released Thursday, with business use given a priority -- but the water system, currently full of E. coli, likely will take months to restore.

"We need to help business get back on its feet as soon as possible," Trustee Connie Sullivan said, in voting to bring back power before the water and sewer work was done.

It can't be soon enough for Oehlman. Again, she has a bit of a luck -- a location in Estes Park that's still operational, even if business is down because of the floods. But most places don't have that buffer, she said, and few have the resources to hold out until December.

The results, Oehlman said, could be devastating.

"I just want to get home," she said. "Right now, I have no roads, no power ... no future."

Sullivan had hopes that the town's business would survive, though not easily.

"It will take a long time to recover from the losses," she said. "But Lyons is a very close community and we will work hard to rebuild our economy."

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story